The apple maggot quarantine area, which encompasses all of Western Washington and small portions of Eastern Washington in an effort to control an aggressively invasive fruit fly, is a widely recognizable by warning with signs posted on every major roadway between Western and Eastern Washington. 

The signs note that bringing homegrown fruit from Western Washington into Eastern Washington is against the law. Violations of the apple maggot quarantine area are serious. So serious, in fact, that penalties and regulations for how apples from infested areas can be transported are enshrined in our state’s administrative and revised codes.

More egregious is the error in judgement the importation infested apples represent to tree fruit producers affected by the recent fires in Eastern Washington. With apple harvest underway, a more appropriate gesture in fire-ravaged communities could include deliveries of potable water, warm meals, emergency supplies, or offers of relief help coordination.

Apple maggots are widely known to tree fruit growers as an invasive and persistent pest that, once introduced into an orchard, remain for the life of the orchard. 

There are few places in the United States that can boast being apple maggot free and the safe counties of our state happen to be in a large, continuous swath through the heart of central Washington making it difficult to maintain– an accomplishment that has now been seriously jeopardized.